Easter IV: To be a good shepherd
Today is commonly called Good Shepherd Sunday. It’s about sheep! Obviously!
My knowledge and experience with sheep though is limited. You may have had much more experience than I. However, I have watched them grazing from a distance. I've walked among them on the South Isle of New Zealand and across the moors in Scotland and found them skittish and aloof. I have enjoyed lamb chops and the Sunday lamb roast with ALL the accompaniments.
Most of what I've heard about sheep is unflattering. They are reputed to be stupid, lacking in initiative and likely to fall over cliffs or entangle themselves in brush. They are not playful. Lambs have a winsome charm, but the adult animal is stolid and a little boring. Rams are distinguished by their horns. Although there may be some variation in color, most sheep resemble every other sheep in the flock. To see one sheep is to have seen them all.
My sheep, Jesus says, hear my voice – I know them and they follow – following is not what our society demands of us. Our society places a high value on ingenuity, creativity and individuality. It is better to be a leader than a follower. Can you imagine parents urging their children to be good sheep, to aim for mediocrity in academics and sports? We admire people with high levels of energy and a zest for exploration. No, to be a good sheep is not part of the great Aussie dream.
There is no such thing as an independent or self-made sheep. A sheep needs the shepherd to guide and care for it and - in dire straits - to rescue it. There is nothing sentimental about this relationship: for the sheep it is a matter of survival, and for the shepherd a matter of economy. The sheep are valuable property, not pets to be cuddled.
Although all sheep look alike to my city-bred eye, the good shepherd knows his sheep as individuals. Each one is worthy of his care and attention. In Luke's Gospel, Jesus is trying to give his hearers some idea of God's love for the seemingly insignificant individual. He tells the story of the shepherd who leaves the flock to search for the troublesome stray. For all we know, it was a scruffy sheep, the runt of the flock. But the shepherd rejoices as he carries it home.
We easily turn people into sheep - those people who "look alike." The boisterous, slightly threatening teenagers who rush onto the train, the homeless who warm themselves on sidewalk grates and huddle in doorways, some even who sleep on our pews during the week, the frail aged lined up in their wheelchairs in nursing home corridors, the caged young men in our jails and prisons - they can become sheep.
When I see pictures of refugees, those victims of indescribable suffering, they begin to look alike. Even the individual child with great pleading eyes begins to look like every other starving child; the mother holding her dead infant looks like all the other mothers.
I turn people into sheep because it is easier that way. It shields me from being touched by their pain, and it helps me deny my kinship with them. It lets me forget that I am a sheep also. It's quite all right to be a sheep as long as we pay attention and hear the shepherd's voice. The essential, crucial point is this: the good shepherd knows the sheep.
I yearn to be known, and at the same time I fear it. Most of the time, we let ourselves be known only in bits and pieces and we learn to know others in the same way. My wife of 40+ years thinks she knows me; my children are sure they have me figured out. Foolishly, I think I know myself. But I want to be known on my own terms - a carefully constructed and edited version, not one of the sheep who gets lost and falls off cliffs. Not as a sheep who can't find his way.
To be fully known is not possible in our human relationships, but it is the foundation of our relationship with Christ. To be known, fully known, is both painful and profoundly comforting. We are called to accept the humble status of sheep, to let our masks and defenses drop away, and allow the shepherd to carry us on his shoulder and occasionally poke us with his staff.
Sometimes we are thwarted - the edge of the cliff doesn't look too dangerous ... I wasn't going to wander very far, honest! But we can listen for the shepherd's voice and rejoice because he knows each of us in this blundering sheepish flock.
I am a sheep. My task is to feed on the lush or barren pastures to which the shepherd chooses to lead me. My task is to listen – first and foremost for the voice of the shepherd, but also for the bleating of my fellow sheep, whether in my own little band, a neighboring one, or a group just over the crest of the hill, whom I’d imagined lost forever. There are other sheep who’ve forgotten the voice entirely, though the shepherd remembers them. Their bleating is no less coherent than mine. They’re not a problem to be solved. They, too, are beloved. My task is to be patient, to wait on the shepherd’s voice.
For now, though, I feed on the good Word, on the gift of prayer, and on the many graces I’ve been granted. I listen for the call of other sheep, even those with whom I sincerely disagree. They may know something of the shepherd’s voice I’ve forgotten or ignored. They can help me to hear that voice rightly, or at least better than I hear it now.
For them, O Lord, teach me to be truly grateful, and let me graze in your green meadows awhile longer. I’m a slow learner. I am a sheep. I am known and I follow. We are known – and called to follow. My sheep hear my voice, I know them and they follow me, he says. Let us pray: Good Shepherd,
Teach us to follow you to care for all that are close to us, to protect those who are threatened, to welcome those who are rejected, to forgive those who are burdened by guilt, to heal those who are broken and sick, to share with those who have little or nothing, to take the time to really know one another and love as you have loved us.
Good Shepherd,
Teach us to follow you to spread compassion to those who are far away, to speak for those who are voiceless, to defend those who are oppressed and abused, to work for justice for those who are exploited, to make peace for those who suffer violence, to take the time to recognize our connectedness, and to love as you have loved us.
Good Shepherd,
Teach us to follow you and to be faithful to the calling you gave us to be shepherds in your name. Amen
Fr David Peake